Chapter 66: The Third Husband

The silence between them was louder than the stampede of Horned Berserker-Mice had been.

Yan Shu walked with his shoulders hunched, his hands clasped tightly in front of his chest as if holding his own heart inside his ribcage. Every step felt like walking on broken glass, yet the ground was soft, damp earth. Beside him, Bai Yue walked with her head down, kicking at small pebbles with a clumsiness that made his red panda ears twitch in confusion.

The old Bai Yue would never have kicked pebbles. The old Bai Yue would have demanded he carry her. She would have snapped her fingers and ordered him to fan her while she complained about the dust. She would have looked at him with eyes like chips of ice, devoid of any warmth whatsoever.

But this woman…..this woman was looking at her own feet.

Yan Shu stole a glance at her profile. The moonlight caught the smudge of dirt on her cheek, the same dirt she had gotten while shielding the cubs from the mice. His chest ached.

Why did I come back? he thought, his tail giving an involuntary, anxious swish behind him.

He remembered the journey here vividly. Han Shān had practically dragged him across the valley. The Snow Leopard Alpha, a man of few words and many glares, had gripped Yan Shu’s collar with an iron grip and said, “You need to see this. If you don’t, you will spend the rest of your life wondering. And I am tired of hearing you sigh at the moon.”

Yan Shu had argued. He had pleaded. He had reminded Han Shān that sighing at the moon was a scholarly pursuit of melancholy! But Han Shān had merely grunted, tossed him onto Shěn’s back (while the Tiger was still partially hallucinating from Moon-Whisker Weed), and brought him here.

And now…..now he was walking beside the source of his nightmares.

“You… um…” Yan Shu’s voice cracked. He cleared his throat, trying to summon the dignified tone of a scholar. “You walk very quietly.”

Great Spirit,

Yan Shu thought, that was the stupidest thing I have ever said.

Bai Yue jumped slightly, as if he had shouted. She looked up, her eyes wide and violet. In the moonlight, they looked soft. Terrified, even.

“Oh! Right! Yes!” She stumbled over a root, flailed her arms wildly to regain balance, and then froze, looking at him as if expecting him to scold her for being clumsy. “I mean… I don’t want to disturb the… the night creatures.”

She offered a weak, shaky smile.

Yan Shu’s ears flattened against his head. The old Bai Yue would have laughed at him for stumbling. She would have called him useless. But she was looking at him with…..concern?

“You do not need to worry about that,” Yan Shu said softly, adjusting his glasses which had gone slightly askew during the sprint.

They walked another ten paces in silence. The village was settling down behind them. The dragons were likely arguing over the remaining hot pot. Zhāo Yàn was probably smirking somewhere in the shadows. But here, in this small pocket of night, it was just the scholar and the woman who had broken him.

Yan Shu’s heart hurt. It was a confusing ache. Part of him wanted to run. Every instinct screamed that this was a trick, that the kindness was a mask that would slip the moment she got bored. But another part of him…..the part that had watched her throw herself over five cubs without a second thought… wanted to believe.

He watched her hands. They were calloused now. The original Bai Yue had kept her hands soft, adorned with rings, useless for anything but pointing accusatory fingers.

These hands had held a stick against vultures. They had stirred a cauldron of weaponized spice.

His son. Hóng Yè was still angry. Yan Shu knew that.

“You look…” Yan Shu started, then stopped. He fidgeted with the hem of his sleeve. “You look different.”

Bai Yue slowed down. She turned to face him fully, wringing her hands together. “I know. I… I know I do. I know I can’t just… say sorry and fix everything. I know what I did. What she

did.”

“She?” Yan Shu tilted his head.

“Never mind,” she said quickly, shaking her head. “Just….I’m not her anymore, Yan Shu. I promise. I know promises are cheap. I know I don’t deserve your trust. I just… I wanted you to know that I’m not going to kick you out again. Or starve Hóng Yè. Or… or break your heart.”

Her voice wavered on the last sentence. She looked down at her feet again, her shoulders hunching as if bracing for a blow.

Yan Shu stood frozen.

But then his tail betrayed him. It gave a slow, hopeful wag behind him, thumping softly against the back of his legs. He tried to will it to stop, but Red Panda tails had minds of their own when emotions ran high.

Bai Yue noticed. Her eyes flicked to his tail, then back to his face. A faint blush colored her cheeks. Uh? Bai Yue… she looked shy.

“I… I saw you,” Yan Shu whispered, the words tumbling out before he could check them. “When the mice came. You did not run.”

“I couldn’t leave them,” she said simply.

“You stood still,” Yan Shu continued, taking a small step closer. “You are not a warrior. You are… small. Fragile. But you stood like a mountain.”

Bai Yue shrugged, looking embarrassed. “They were just mice. Well, scary mice. But still.”

“To me,” Yan Shu said, his voice thick with emotion, “you looked like a guardian spirit.”

He stopped walking. They were near the edge of the hot spring path now, where the steam began to curl through the trees. The warmth hit his face, but the heat in his chest was greater.

“Han Shān told me you fought a Hydra,” Yan Shu said suddenly.

Bai Yue winced. “It was more of a… stern talking to. They were fighting over a toy.”

“And a Dragon,” Yan Shu added.

“She’s annoying,” Bai Yue muttered.

“And you bet Zhāo Yàn in a cooking contest.”

“I won,” she said, a tiny spark of pride returning to her eyes.

Yan Shu felt a smile tugging at his lips. It felt rusty, unused. He hadn’t smiled like this in years. Not since before the cold winters, before the silence of his hut became too loud to bear.

“I am…..glad you won,” Yan Shu said.

He took a deep breath. His scholar’s mind raced through a thousand poems, a thousand elegant ways to bridge the gap between them. But all of them felt too heavy for this moment.

He looked at her open arms, still slightly raised as if she had just finished shielding the cubs. He looked at her face, waiting for his judgment.

“I do not know if I can forgive you yet,” Yan Shu admitted, his voice honest and quiet. “The pain… it is still there. Like an old wound that aches when it rains.”

Bai Yue nodded quickly, looking down. “I understand. I don’t expect—”

“But,” Yan Shu interrupted, stepping into her personal space.

Bai Yue froze, her breath hitching.

“I would like…” Yan Shu’s ears twitched violently. His face felt hot. He was a scholar, not a warrior! Why was this harder than facing the mice? “I would like to hug you.”

Bai Yue’s eyes widened. “Eh?”

“Not now!” Yan Shu said quickly, waving his hands. “I mean… not if you don’t want to! I just… my heart is very confused. It wants to run away, but it also wants to… to be close. Because you protected Hóng Yè. And Ruì Xuě. And… and me.”

He took a shaky breath, his tail giving one final, decisive wag.

“So… maybe… later? When I am less… terrified?”

Bai Yue stared at him. For a second, Yan Shu thought he had made a terrible mistake. He thought she would laugh, or sneer, or tell him to go back to his hut.

Instead, her eyes filled with tears. Bright, shimmering tears that didn’t fall, but made her violet eyes look like polished gems.

She smiled.

“Okay,” Bai Yue whispered. “Later. I can wait for later.”

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